Making American Food for Friends

The past couple of days, I've been sharing American cuisine with friends from my community. Part of my job as a Peace Corps volunteer is to share American culture with locals, so I decided to share grilled cheese sandwiches.

Actually, I started last night with pasta. There's an orphan girl who has been living with my former host family, and I've been trying to do what I can to help with her, mainly struggling through the Dominican legal system to get her to a decent permanent home, but also occasionally keeping her occupied so she gets in less trouble (keeping her out of trouble entirely would be nice, but I like making goals that are actually possible). Anyway, she and my host nephew came over last night and I made pasta while they watched part of The Lion King in Spanish on my laptop. 

No, scratch that. I made pasta while the boy 'helped' by explaining how to make pasta, and how to open cans, and what all the things in my kitchen are for, and how to stir, and what ingredients we needed to add (when I was still living with them, he noticed my toothbrush and explained how to brush one's teeth. He loves explaining things, and sometimes even knows what he's talking about! He's among the 50% of fourth graders who know how to read, so I guess he's pretty smart). Meanwhile, the girl (who's only about a year younger but hasn't ever been in school, but who learns very quickly and is indisputably smart) searched through my things for 'gifts' she could beg from me with her puppy dog eyes. The Lion King didn't go ignored, however, because a neighbor boy of about 12 years (whom I've never really met and whose name I don't know) walked in the door with us and sat quietly watching the movie. In Dominican culture, you usually don't invite guests, they invite themselves, and you feed whoever happens to be around at mealtime, so I added some tomato soup to the pasta sauce and managed to feed four in my toolshed. Then my host sister and aunt showed up and scolded me for not saving any for them, and after chatting for a bit everyone left. It was a little chaotic, but really didn't take very long. My poor kitten could come out of hiding by the time Simba met Timon and Pumbaa. And the kids had fun and liked the food, so I'll consider it a successful night!

Scar singing on the not-so-big screen.

Cute girl with leftovers. That's my host sister on the left.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Given the size of my one-room home, though, I preferred tonights strategy. I picked up cheese and bread today while I was in the city for church, and I carried my supplies over to some (other) friends' house. They'd never had grilled cheese sandwiches before (honestly, they're probably too expensive), and they'd never even worked a can opener before, so I looked like quite the master chef as I whipped up some grilled cheese and tomato soup. Once again, the food was spread around to more people than I expected, but it doesn't take much food to fill the bellies of people too poor for grilled cheese. We had soup left over! And then I opened my homemade pickles, and they all got to try some of that. For sour vegetables, pickles are surprisingly popular, although there were a couple of the standard oddballs in the crowd who aren't pickle fans.

My sous-chef slicing up the finished product.

Our big pot of soup. They kept calling it 'salsa' because I told them to dip the sandwiches in it.

Some happy customers. I guess the guy on the left is sad that his is gone.

They wanted me to document their full bellies. I'm also documenting the fact that very few Dominicans believe in zippers.

Another very successful night. When people think 'Peace Corps,' I'll bet they usually think of digging latrines and building houses, but having dinner with friends is at least as important and at least as 'Peace Corps' as manual labor.

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 1)

I'm sorry I've been so pathetic about updating this blog. If you're still around to read this, thank you for sticking with me!

In order to cover all (ok, some) of the things that have happened in the three months since I last updated, I'm going to have a:

— 1 —

As most of you probably know, I had my first trip back to the US from Oct 20 - Nov 7. I was home for both of my parents' birthdays, Halloween, the dedication of my youngest goddaughter, and an early Thanksgiving meal with our neighbors. I kept telling people that the two goals of my trip were to see lots of friends and eat a lot of good food, and I was successful on both fronts! At final weigh-in, I was almost 8 pounds heavier than when I first arrived home (I had lost a lot of weight in the PC, so I needed those 8 pounds back). Some friends were busy or far away, but I got to see most of the people I wanted to. Overall, it was a very good trip. I would have liked to stay longer, but I got my vacation's worth, so I couldn't really complain about coming back. Especially since I got to have another warm homecoming with all the kids here!

— 2 —

Thanksgiving, being an American holiday, is a time when all the Peace Corps Volunteers get together to celebrate. We went in to Santo Domingo, swam in a fancy rooftop pool, ate traditional Thanksgiving food, had a talent show, spoke English, and caught up with friends we haven't seen in months.

— 3 —

Before my trip home, my major focus was teaching English and computers to 5th-8th graders in the local school. Computer classes weren't bad, but we only had 8 computers for about 150 kids, so they each got to share a computer for about 20 minutes, and theres only so much anyone can learn in 20 minutes. English classes were worse, because most of the students didn't actually care to learn, so I got the 'substitute teacher treatment' and nobody learned anything. I gave a test the week before I left and caught about 10% of the students cheating. About the same number of students passed. I was thinking of ways to rework the classes by selecting out the students who actually cared to learn, but when I talked to the principal, she just had me drop the classes altogether. Also, she didn't want so many students in the computer lab, because she didn't want anything to happen to the computers, so those classes were dropped too.

— 4 —

I was perfectly happy to lose English and computer classes, because that left me free to focus on what I really enjoy: children's literacy! I used to go in to 3rd grade once a week, but now I have time to visit 2nd and 4th grade as well. I sit in the back with some reading books and the teacher sends students over one by one. We read a few pages together, and that's the only one-on-one work many of these kids get. They love it (and fight over whose turn it is), and I've seen real improvement. Most of them won't ever use English, and those who have access to computers mainly surf facebook, but reading is a valuable lifetime skill. And I'm nice when I'm working one-on-one, but I had to get mean when I was dealing with mobs of students cheating right under my nose.

— 5 —

As of yesterday, I have a kitten! His name is Jerónimo, which is the Spanish variation of Jerome. Saint Jerome was a contemporary of Saint Augustine, so Jerónimo and Agustín go well together! He's tiny, and I have to wonder if he was ready to leave his mother, who lives with my former host family. They've been saying for about a week that he was weaned and ready, but he spent a lot of time hiding and yowling. Recently, though, they've changed from lonely yowls to demanding yowls, even after I give him chicken and salami to complement his cat food (most cats here get fed rice, I hope he knows how luck he is). Also, he's come out of hiding and started getting into trouble, so he seems to be growing up just fine. As soon as he gets a bit bigger, he's going to take charge of Homeshed Security and secure our borders from unwelcome rodents and arachnids. He's got the claws for it...take it from one who picked him up before he was ready.

— 6 —

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, despite the warm weather and the fact that almost nobody here has ever even seen snow. There aren't many evergreen trees around, but some of the families get small fake trees, and lots of people put up lights. I'm happy to learn that most Dominican Christmas songs are just the classic English Christmas songs translated into Spanish. So there are glowing Christmas lights and familiar carols playing, and it's just enough to put me in the holiday mood.

— 7 —

I've learned how to make pickles. They're expensive here, and one of the PC doctors is from Bulgaria, and she told me the traditional Bulgarian method for making pickles. It's surprisingly easy, provides me with tasty veggies, and is a lot cheaper than buying them in the store. Now the Dominicans are getting interested, so I guess pickles will be one part of international culture that I share with my batey.

Home sweet home!

This week I finally moved into my own place.  Living with a host family has its advantages, but it also has plenty of downsides, and most volunteers move out after 3-4 months.  In my batey, there are very few available homes, but a friend managed to find me a place: their neighbor's toolshed!  No, seriously, he was using it to hold his tools, but it's nicer than your average toolshed.  He cleaned it up, painted it, put in a new door, and here I am.  It's about 12x16 feet with two doors and two windows, and it's connected to his house.  He ran me a line from his inverter, so when the power goes out I still have a working lightbulb (which is plenty to light up my single room.

I build a table, a bed, and a shelf a out of cinder blocks and boards, and bought a table from a former volunteer, and that's enough to give me a kitchen, closet, sleeping area, and enough storage space (although I need to get around to organizing...I'm still in a just-recently-moved mess).

It's small, but it's a lot bigger than where I was living before, and I have more freedom.  And after months of rice and beans, I'm happy to be cooking for myself.  After some bean burritos, grilled cheese, scrambled eggs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and my beloved oatmeal for breakfast every day, friends are already commenting that I look fatter (that's a compliment here in the DR).

The major downside is that there's no bathroom.  They have a latrine, but the walls and roof blew down, so it's 'open-air' and not available for use.  Until that gets repaired, I have to find other facilities, like the school where I work, the church across the street, or inside my landlord's house when they're around.  I have a tub inside where I bathe, and that works for me.

Overall, I'm pretty happy in my converted toolshed.  I've never needed a large or fancy home, and I can do without most creature comforts (that's why the Peace Corps was a good match), and my relationship with my host family wasn't great.  My landlord and his wife are wonderful, and already feel more like family than my host family did.  She brings me lunch, fresh bread, or ripe bananas, none of which is necessary, but it fits with Latin American hospitality.

Speaking of hospitality, I need to start entertaining, but my place is small, I need to practice my cooking, and I just moved in, so I haven't had many guests so far, except a few who came uninvited.  First there was a large frog, then a huge moth, and finally a gigantic tarantula.  Killing them seemed to go against the PC ethos, so I shooed them all out alive, but if that tarantula comes back he probably won't be as lucky the second time.  The thing was enormous.

Some pictures.  Pardon the mess; but given that I'm a bachelor living in a toolshed, it's really not that bad!

Before moving anything in, setting up my table.  I'm standing in the front door.

View from the opposite corner (my closet).  The door on the left goes outside, and the door on the right goes into the other part of the toolshed (still used for tools), and then outside to the backyard.

Most of the roofs in town are zinc.  Since this picture, I added a tarp to avoid leaks and try to shield some of the sun.

My first guest.  Dominicans are scared of frogs.

I don't think they're very scary, so I put my foot in the shot for scale.

I haven't done much to make my place feel 'homey,' but I did get these dishtowels, which reminded me of a little girl I know who loves cows.

My second guest.

I shooed him outside three different times, and he kept finding his way back in.  I finally caught him in a box and didn't let him out until I turned off the lights and went to bed.

My kitchen: gas stove, bottled water, a cooler, and a bowl of soapy water.  What more do you need?

New view from the front door.  The kitchen is to the right.

My bed.  Netalie and I have now lived in four different homes together.

My third guest.  I was literally sitting at my computer editing the pictures of the frog and the moth when this guy came in.  God has a funny sense of humor.

I put a can opener in the shot for scale, because I, um, didn't feel like using my foot.  He's the biggest tarantula I've seen in the country, and I think that makes him the biggest spider I've ever seen in person.  Have I mentioned how much I love my mosquito net?

Fortunately, he didn't move very fast, and when I started taking pictures he decided to find a more peaceful place to sleep and creeped his way out.  Actually, he was just going to wait in the corner, but a long broom and I encouraged the rest of the way out.

Actually, I have had other guests: when I moved the table in, it came with a flock of six children who helped me organize and sweep and eat my chocolate.  Actually, they managed the chocolate by themselves, but that's ok.  Apparently, most of the town avoids my (former) host family, so people are more comfortable coming to visit me now that I'm not with them.

There it is!  Home sweet home.

Singing in the scattered showers

In honor of the latest storm that's passing through, and of the rainy season in general, here's a quick post to present:

Four Reasons It's Better to Shower in the Rain

1. Conserve Water.  Around here, the water isn't treated, it can give you nasty diseases, and it's free, so it's not exactly precious.  However, saving water is a good habit to get in, and it would be embarrassing if your bucket ran out of water halfway through bathing, so rainwater is a great way use less of the greenish stuff from the bucket.
2. More Privacy.  My shower has a window at about head level, and there's an excellent view of our front gate.  Even if they can only see my head, there's something awkward about making eye contact with someone while I'm bathing.  Fortunately, nobody goes out in the rain, so rain showers are pleasantly solitary experiences.
3. Cooler Weather.  Most of the time, it's really uncomfortably hot down here.  And most of the time, I'm sweating.  Like, almost constantly.  It's frustrating to dry off from a bath and immediately start sweating again, but the rain brings cooler weather and that means I feel clean for longer!
4. The Real Shower Feel.  It may be a bit chilly, and it may be open-air, but if you close your eyes, you can almost convince yourself that you're enjoying the luxury of a cold shower!

3 Month IST (In Service Training)

Last week I was in the capital with the rest of the education volunteers who were in training with me.  It was a lot of fun seeing everybody, hearing about their sites, speaking English, and eating something besides rice and beans.  We stayed at a Jesuit retreat center, which was beautiful and peaceful and had real toilets and showers (although no hot water, not that you want it during Dominican summers). It felt like quite a luxury!

The occasion was our 3 month In Service Training, which wasn't just for us to get more training, but also for us to present our community diagnostic.  My presentation was well received, largely because I kept it under the 12-minute limit and included plenty of pictures of cute kids!  Honestly, though, it wasn't a high-pressure presentation, because nobody had to approve anything or give me a grade; it was really just to prove I was making progress in my community.

Some of the interesting things I learned about my community in the diagnostic were:

• The #1 cited problem in the batey is the muddy street, which is already being repaired!  (Progress is slow, but it is moving along.)  
• The #2 problem is the lack of employment, which is truly the bigger issue.  There was some interest expressed in a Peace Corps microenterprise club/class, so I'm going to find the documentation for that and hopefully help some people start there own small businesses.
• The #1 reported benefit of our community is the 'tranquilidad' (tranquility).  With so many people up in arms about crime rates and delinquency, it's nice to know that our batey is relatively safe.
• 70% are legally documented, and most of the remaining 30% are already in the process of getting their papers.  (Without documents, they lose a lot of rights, such as schooling for kids and the use of public transportation.)
• Only about 21% of the batey speaks Haitian Creole.  Bateys are associated with Haitians, but this appears to be a very 'Dominican' batey.
• Everybody and their brother wants to learn English and computers (but nobody actually wants to show up for class...).

None of my plans really changed after my diagnostic; I've known from the beginning that I would be teaching English and computers, and that's still going to be my main focus.  I also have plans for the small business club, helping kids with reading and math, and trying to teach effective parenting strategies (i.e. not beating your kids again when they didn't learn from the first beating).

Despite having to sit through more presentations and classes (I thought I'd left college and the corporate world), I had a lot of fun at the IST, and it returning to the batey was a little disappointing.  The average Peace Corps volunteer is a lot more...um...peaceful than the average bateyano.  Although the IST suffered from a severe lack of cute kids!

My Birthday!

Today was my first birthday in the DR.  I took a break from my diagnostic and
from teaching, which was partially my choice and partially necessitated by crazy amounts of rain we had: 

The path river near our house

I never wore crocs in the US, but I couldn't manage without them here!

Our yard

My host sister sweeping water to get it moving out of our yard (and house).

Sweeping muddy water and feeling very Peace Corps!

When the rain and mud let up a bit, I went out to visit some friends.  There are a couple of families living right next to each other; I teach some of the kids reading and math, another teenage daughter is learning English, and their mom is teaching me Haitian Creole.

The teenager (who avoided being captured in any photos) gets credit for remembering my birthday, and ran out to buy something.  Haitians living in a batey don't have a large budget, so I was honored they were spending money on me, and I love what she came up with using only a few cents at the tiny local store:

Cheese puffs and candy, with a candle!

Proof you don't need a cake to feel loved!

 They sang "Happy Birthday" in Spanish and English, but the English version was something like "Happy baby yoo yoo!"  Then we played some games and they insisted on me taking more and more photos:

Showing off for the camera with a song from church

Then I went to another family's house.  These people get even more credit, because they saw me coming, hid inside, and then all ran out cheering when I got there!

 Then someone commandeered my camera

and proceeded, as she always does, to take a bunch of photos of everyone and everything:

Mom in the kitchen

Sister

Dad's motorcycle (and another sister)

Cousin

I decided not to include all the pictures of the ceiling, floor, rocks, dark corners, the same people over and over, and blurry shots of who-knows-what.

Meanwhile, that mom in the kitchen was cooking sugared cherries:

So they gave me a cup of that:

I've had this several times here in the DR.  It's similar to the filling in cherry pie, but a bit more sour...it's pretty good!

'Someone' was pouting because her extra-long turn with the camera was over.

 Overall, I'd call it a good day!

Community Diagnostic

I've been busy with several things recently, but the main task has been my Community Diagnostic.  I'm supposed to visit at least 100 houses in the community to meet people, introduce myself, and learn about the batey and what the people here need.  As of today, I've visited 81 houses, so I'm making good progress and should finish on time to present during our reunion August 9-12.

It's been a good experience so far, and I can see why the Peace Corps requires it: I've met a lot of wonderful people whom I would have never noticed otherwise.  It's easy to walk past a house every day and never stop to think about the people living there, but not when you have to sit down and ask about their interests and struggles.

Coming up with good questions is one of the hardest parts of the Diagnostic; if they're too personal, some people may get put off and not answer honestly, but if they're too general, you don't learn very much.  I've realized that some of my questions aren't very helpful, but others have been really interesting.  Here are my 12 questions, translated into English:

1. How many people live in the house?
2. What do you do in a typical day?
3. What work opportunities are available to the members of this community?
4. Do you speak Haitian Creole? (I would like to learn!)
5. What are some strengths of this batey, or the benefits of living here?
6. What are the biggest problems in this community?
7. Are you Christian?
8. I'm currently fixing up the computers in the school, because they're in English and I need to put them in Spanish.  When I finish with that, I hope to give a basic computer class (just teaching how to use a computer) and a class in Microsoft Office (teaching how to create documents).  Are you interested in either of those classes?
9. There are some clubs that Peace Corps volunteers occasionally give.  One is for learning even more about computers so that when I leave there can be people to manage the computer lab.  Another is for learning about and taking care of the Environment, and and third is for learning how to start and run a small personal business.  All these are possibilities if there's enough interest.
10. I visited the local nuns to ask about the documentation of children, because I know that's a big problem here, and the system in this country is very difficult.  Do you have everything taken care of, or are some people still missing birth certificates or other documents?
11. What forms of discipline are used in this community?  When children behave badly, what happens?
12. What health resources are available in this community?

The Creole question is helpful for connecting with them on a personal level.  Most are Dominican, and some even start to get offended to be mistaken for Haitians, but once I talk about wanting to study the language, they open up and share a few words they know or laugh about how they still can't understand the language after being around it their whole life.  If they're Haitian, I can tell them in Creole that I'm studying the language, but I can't say very much!

The question about Christianity helps me gauge their response to question 11.  Child abuse occurs among Christians and nonchristians, but most of those who join me in opposing it are Christian, and most of those who seem dangerous are not.  I've never had any problems personally, but there have been a few houses where question 11 is really uncomfortable, and I'm happy to leave.

Harsh physical discipline has been one of the hardest things for me to deal with here, and I want to do something to address the problem while I'm here.  Gracias a Dios I've met many wonderful people in this batey who see the problem and want to help me fix it, and question 11 is what brings them out of the woodwork.